Why We Must (Gently) Disagree With Our Friend Mark Levin

Mark Levin, who along with Rush and Laura Ingraham, is often the tip of the spear in fighting for conservative principles had a truly great show yesterday with both Senator Mike Lee and Ted Cruz as guests.

Levin’s frustration is understandable and as CHQ Chairman Richard A. Viguerie recounted in his latest book “TAKEOVER” he has been there.

In 1976 Mr. Viguerie was among the many conservatives who, after witnessing the insider bargains verging on corruption that cost Ronald Reagan the Republican presidential nomination, urged Reagan to leave the Republican Party and launch “a full-blown national conservative movement,” and run as a third-party candidate.

The organizers of this effort convened meetings, they talked to potential donors, they had a sound basis for thinking such an effort could work.

But Reagan quickly disabused them of the idea he would be part of forming a third party.

Reagan’s answer to those, including some of his good political supporters, who wanted him to head this new conservative party, was to tell them “they were out of their minds.”

As Reagan saw it then (and he was right) the bulk of conservative voters in America are Republicans—and they won’t desert the Republican Party for a third party.

Reagan understood that if he was ever going to make progress in accomplishing the things he believed in, it would have to be within the Republican Party. This is why, while Mr. Viguerie considers himself to be first and foremost a limited-government constitutional conservative, he operates, then and now, within the Republican Party.

Although dealing with the “dime store Democrat” leadership of the national Republican Party was often a hard pill for those associated with the New Right to swallow, Viguerie and his colleagues concluded that the path to electing conservative candidates was not to form a third party; it was to become a “third force” to conceive and advance conservative ideas, and elect conservative candidates through the Republican Party.

Today, the Tea Party does a good job of this on some issues, but as Richard Viguerie outlines in TAKEOVER, we conservatives need to focus more on building the infrastructure of our “third force” organizations, and equally as important, running for and electing principled conservatives as Republican Party leaders and officials.

Think of the difference it would make in the political dynamics of today if conservatives elected 100,000 principled conservative Republican precinct committeemen in the approximately 186,000 precincts in America.

This would allow conservatives to take control of a majority of the GOP state committees and elect a majority (85+) of principled conservatives to the 162-member Republican National Committee, giving conservatives control of the RNC.

Were we conservatives to elect 100,000 principled conservative precinct committeemen suddenly, a commitment by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee to fight amnesty for illegal aliens would really mean something, and there would be real pressure within the Republican Party for congressional leaders to actually make good on the campaign promises they made to conservatives.

There would be no such pressure if conservatives bolt the Republican Party.

Instead the conservative vote would be split, handing Democrats the opportunity to use the power of government to open the voter rolls to those who do not now qualify as electors and change the rules, such as re-imposing the “fairness doctrine” for radio and TV, that would limit conservative access to the media and guarantee that conservatives would be shut out of office for years to come.

Let’s take over the Republican Party! Richard A. Viguerie can do this. First we need to get rid of the RINOs. To do this we need to start by taking over the Speakership and the Majority Leader positions. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner have demonstrated that they are unable to negotiate effectively — even from a position of overwhelming strength! Viguerie and Rep. Paul Ryan should make an appointment with each Republican in the House who is not a member of the Tea Party Caucus. Show him the numbers of people in the Conservative HQ, Tea Party and like-minded groups in his district. If he was supported by these groups he owes his election to us. If he was not supported in the primary by the these groups, ask him if he thinks he could have been elected if all these groups had actively opposed him and voted for the Democrat. Even if we supported a different primary contender, the overwhelming majority of us voted Republican in the general election. So he, too, owes his election to us. What if we had all voted for the Democrat? Tell him that if he wants to get re-elected, he must join and follow the Tea Party Caucus. At the same meeting, get him to sign a letter asking Rep. John Boehner to resign as Speaker of the House. Then put in someone with testicles who will demand a return to fiscal sanity. I suggest Ryan. Ask Sen. Ted Cruz and/or Sen. Mike Lee to do the same in the Senate.

Even though a third Conservative Party may be very small, when , particularly in the Senate, there is a very close vote, one or two or three votes can make or break a bill. If those few votes are votes that come from a Conservative Party, the thing can be thrown our way, or the bill can be changed in some respect to slant in our direction. So don't think that just because a new Conservative Party isn't as big and strong as the Republican Party it can't be a very important voice in the Congress, particularly in the Senate.

Well I for one as a staunch Republican party voter, since I was able to vote, am a little sick of holding my nose to vote for some loser candidate. Republican leadership has a seemingly death wish. I am not going to do it anymore. If the wrong candidate gets in because of it, well so be it. They probably would have been elected anyway.

I believe it is abundantly clear that the GOP is not going to change. They have people like Boehner who clearly has been in Washington too long. It is all about back room deals, kick-backs, position and power for them. They just lie to the American people, their constituents, then go to Washington and it's business as usual, again. The RNC uses their coffers to quash any opposing conservative candidate....so if you are a conservative and continue to give money to the RNC, you are allowing someone to work against you and your principles with your own money. I believe if someone of Mark's stature and position as a Conservative were to leave the GOP and come to the Constitution Party, people would leave the GOP in droves, which is what we need to send them a message. They apparently do not hear us now.

The RNC obviously believes that whatever it does the conservatives have no place to go, so they will continue to ignore the voters they claim to represent. However, I, for one will no longer support them. After all, they no longer give any pretense to representing Conservatives, so what would I lose? To paraphrase one brilliant Statesman, "I will not leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party has left me".

I agree, a third party would be a split of conservative voters and Dems would win. But right now we have only one party with two wings. The progressive party with a Democrat wing and a Republican wing, Everyone who cares has to stop emailing Senators and Congressmen and make the phone calls and do not forget fax machines. They hate those in DC, it is a record and bothersome to them.